Here’s a reminder that wage theft is the single largest form of theft, larger than every other type of theft combined. It is literally over 51% of all theft. And it goes largely unpunished, because the people being stolen from either don’t or can’t speak out about it.
And wage theft isn’t just refusing to pay someone. Employers are smarter than that, because they know something so blatant and easy to prove will get them slapped. Instead, they do things like skim off the top by unfairly adjusting your clock in/out times. Or they’ll do things like require you to show up 15 minutes before your shift, then refuse to let you clock in until your shift is scheduled to start. Or they’ll force you to clock out right when your shift is scheduled to be done, (under the guise of avoiding overtime) even if you have another 5-10 minutes of work to do. Theft by break infringement is also common, where employers will have you clock out for your break, then try to dictate how you spend your time on the break.
All of those tiny things, multiplied by thousands of employees at a large company, adds up to theft on a truly massive scale.
If you started walking into a gas station at the same time every day, and blatantly stealing a $2 candy bar, they’d have a cop waiting for you to show up by the end of the first week. But if that same gas station (with locations all across the country) systematically steals $2 from thousands of employees on every single shift, that’s a civil issue but it’s not worth the money for any single person to sue (if the employees could even afford a lawyer) and the department of labor is critically understaffed.
my state (victoria, as) recently made intentional wage theft a criminal offense, and both companies and individuals (directors, hr, managers, etc) can all be liable … it’s amazing 😍
Here’s a reminder that wage theft is the single largest form of theft, larger than every other type of theft combined. It is literally over 51% of all theft. And it goes largely unpunished, because the people being stolen from either don’t or can’t speak out about it.
And wage theft isn’t just refusing to pay someone. Employers are smarter than that, because they know something so blatant and easy to prove will get them slapped. Instead, they do things like skim off the top by unfairly adjusting your clock in/out times. Or they’ll do things like require you to show up 15 minutes before your shift, then refuse to let you clock in until your shift is scheduled to start. Or they’ll force you to clock out right when your shift is scheduled to be done, (under the guise of avoiding overtime) even if you have another 5-10 minutes of work to do. Theft by break infringement is also common, where employers will have you clock out for your break, then try to dictate how you spend your time on the break.
All of those tiny things, multiplied by thousands of employees at a large company, adds up to theft on a truly massive scale.
If you started walking into a gas station at the same time every day, and blatantly stealing a $2 candy bar, they’d have a cop waiting for you to show up by the end of the first week. But if that same gas station (with locations all across the country) systematically steals $2 from thousands of employees on every single shift, that’s a civil issue but it’s not worth the money for any single person to sue (if the employees could even afford a lawyer) and the department of labor is critically understaffed.
my state (victoria, as) recently made intentional wage theft a criminal offense, and both companies and individuals (directors, hr, managers, etc) can all be liable … it’s amazing 😍